


Power Outage

by enkelimagnus



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Immortality, M/M, Magnus-centric, Mortal!Magnus, Mortality, Pain, Post 3x10, loss of magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 00:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16006931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/pseuds/enkelimagnus
Summary: Post 3x10, a month later, how Magnus deals with his loss of magic/immortality, and how Alec feels about their future.





	Power Outage

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to get my feelings on mortal Magnus out.

Magnus laid in bed earlier these days. He was more heavy, more tired, as if, for once in his life, his bones were actually supporting the weight of his body fully. As if there wasn’t this thing that had kept him afloat for centuries. 

He knew what was missing. He knew it and yet he closed his eyes on it, and closed his eyes on the truth and pretended he wasn’t what he was now. He pretended that nothing had changed, only to be met with the obvious and painful evidence that no, things had changed dramatically. 

He was so cold. He couldn’t sleep without a shirt on anymore. His apartment felt cold, empty, lifeless. He opened the windows less often. Making tea was tedious, more than it had ever been. 

Nothing tasted right, nothing felt right anymore. Everything was empty. 

Magnus was awake, and it was the middle of the night, and he knew he would be so completely exhausted the day after, but after all, it wasn’t like he had anything to do with his day. He didn’t have any more clients. 

Alec watched him with worry in his eyes, and Magnus couldn’t bring himself to reassure him. Sometimes, even the reminder of the magic that made Alec’s runes possible was too much. 

Magnus had wished so many times that he could grow old with his lovers. He’d wished he’d been able to be with them in that way, in that aging intimate way that seemed so beautiful in its ephemerality. 

He’d never really realized what it truly meant. Now, he could feel it. He felt how it was to be mortal and aging. To be magic-less. That was one thing he’d never thought about. He’d never thought that mortality would come with the loss of his magic. The loss of his soul. 

He stood up from the bed, barely even looking at Alec’s sleeping form, and walked to the living room. He opened the window and let the cold night air make him shiver. Maybe he would feel a little more alive if he was cold.

The balcony was plunged in the dark. He didn’t remember where the switch for the lights was; so he just sat on the sofa, in the dark. Magnus hugged his knees to his chest, and tried to deal with everything he was feeling, again. 

He felt like telling Alec would be pointless. After all, it would only make the other man feel guilty. It had been for him after all, that he’d done that. For Alec, because it was his parabatai. Did Magnus regret it? Yes. Every second since he’d felt the hole in his chest from the power loss, once Alec had been safe with Catarina and he’d only been able to watch. 

Watch, fingers itching. 

Tears started falling down his face again, like it did so often recently. He’d cried so much in his long life that he didn’t think he would have enough of them still left to cry so often. His life was going to end, in a couple of decades. A blink of an eye to immortals, and now…. Just what was left for him. 

Something wrapped and squeezed around his heart. Pain, beyond compare. He didn’t want to turn to alcohol. He was way more subject to hangovers now. He couldn’t stand up either, not right now, just frozen into place, trying to get himself together again, patch himself back up.

He was Magnus Bane, after all. 

The realization that he wasn’t, wasn’t really Magnus Bane, wasn’t himself and wasn’t good enough, useful enough, wasn’t himself, wasn’t what he wanted, wasn’t what he used to, wasn’t what he’d prided himself on being, hit him like a train, and his body unlocked. 

He ran to the bathroom, bile rising, knowing Alec would wake up and realize what was happening while he slept, what had been happening almost every night for the last month. 

Vomit hit the toilet, too loud in the silent, but not as loud as the beating of Magnus’ too human heart. His body tensed and ached as he emptied his stomach, tears streaming down his face in pain and realization, forced out of his body too. 

Alec’s hand was cool, again, and for a second, Magnus leaned into the sensation of it. It was like before, like when he had his magic and it would warm up his blood. Alec held him until Magnus could stop vomiting. 

He held him as Magnus broke down into sobs against his chest, violent sobs that didn’t make any sense. 

He should be getting used to his reality, and yet here he was, sobbing. Sobbing against his shadowhunter of a boyfriend, clinging desperately to the small amount of magic that remained in his life. 

Alec didn’t ask many questions. He just held Magnus, held his shaking body for hours. He’d be late at work probably, but a stamina rune would take care of the lack of sleep. He just couldn’t leave Magnus alone, despite what Magnus told him. 

Magnus wasn’t made to be mortal. To be mundane. It was obvious, it had been obvious since the moment Alec had walked home after the battle. Obvious in his messy hair, and bad makeup, obvious in the time he took to prepare tea, and the heaviness in every motion he had to do without magic. 

Obvious in the way Magnus had broken down in sobs when he’d sent a pot smashing on the ground by mistake, raised his hands, but no magic had repaired it. He’d told Alec he was sad because of the memories, but Alec knew there was more to it than that. 

Magnus was crippled, and Alec hated it with all his might. He didn’t want Magnus to get used to it. He didn’t want to live like this with him. He loved Magnus, not this… person that wasn’t truly him. How could he love this mundane version of the man he loved? 

Magnus cried too, but never so desperately. Magnus had his depressed moments, but he also had sunny, beautiful ones, and the man he held in his arms, the husk of Magnus, hadn’t smiled genuinely in weeks. 

They would find a way to get his magic back. Alec would give anything, especially his mortality, to Asmodeus, in exchange. He was already planning, a half-finished - but terribly decisive plan - to summon an audience with the Prince of Hell. 

Alec had made his own peace with mortality. One way or another, people around him would die, whether it was of old age or not. Jace had already told him, in a small, sudden conversation that Alec hadn’t initiated, that he would support every decision. And that, if Alec wanted to spend immortality with the man that was so clearly his soulmate, then it was the right choice. 

Izzy hadn’t, less openly maybe. She sometimes wasn’t as direct as Jace, but she’d been helping him find immortality spells, and books on death and death magic, from the Clave’s archives. It was her way of giving her blessing too. 

Alec was ready for this. For immortality, for Magnus and immortality.

He cradled Magnus’ exhausted and cold body against him in their bed that night, keeping him close. This wasn’t a reality he wanted. This had never been a future he’d wanted. Alec would do anything to make this right.


End file.
